The Goddesses

by Swan Huntley

  Marcy started a new lei while I continued to work on this one slowly. Getting to the knot-it-off part would include asking how to knot it off, and I wasn’t ready for that yet, so I just kept adding flowers, making them as tight as possible.

  While Marcy told me about the astounding difference in price between the beef at Island Naturals and the beef at KTA, I eyed the other women and thought they were homely. And very serious about their leis—almost sadly serious, because this was obviously the highlight of their day. I may have felt a little superior knowing it would not be the highlight of mine. I may have noted that my laid-back position in the chair and my who-cares workout attire suggested I had a life beyond stringing flowers. I may have also noted that everyone at the table had covered their flabby middle-aged arms with distracting floral fabrics while my shoulders were proudly exposed.

  “And then I found a centipede!” Marcy widened her small eyes. She had moved on from the beef monologue.

  “Oh,” I said, feigning a little concern. “What did you do with it?”

  “I killed it,” she said. “I sprayed it with Febreze until it died.”

  Flashback to last night: Ana capturing a roach in a tissue and setting it free outside. I had said, “You didn’t kill it?” And she had said, “Hello. Karma?” She’d then told me that according to Buddhism, every life is worth the same amount. All her little Buddha figurines were looking at me from their perches, and I had thought: Is that true?

  “I try to put my centipedes outside,” I informed Marcy politely. This wasn’t true. I’d never even seen a centipede, but I had heard they could be the length of your forearm here. “You know, because it might be bad karma to kill them.”

  Marcy pulled her lips back. “Oh.”

  “Anyway,” I cleared my throat, “that’s what Buddhists think.”

  “Are you a Buddhist?”

  “No.” I laughed. A few months ago, no one would have asked me this. “I’m not anything.”

  “I used to be Catholic,” Marcy recalled, maybe a little sourly, “but now I’m not anything either.”

  •

  From the terrace at Pancho & Lefty’s, I could see the work Ana and I had done from a more expansive view. YOU ARE LOVED, YOU ARE LOVED, YOU ARE LOVED. The ones I had written were all caps. Ana’s were cursive and sometimes embellished with a smiley face or a star. They were disappearing already under everyone’s footsteps, which was a shame. I wondered if enough people would notice before they disappeared completely. And then a tourist took a picture—of one of mine—and I rubbed my lips together to stop myself from smiling because I didn’t want Marcy to ask me what I was smiling about. I stretched my arms up. My back still hurt, but it was a satisfying kind of pain.

  Marcy ordered her California burrito, and I ordered a mahi-mahi burrito. I couldn’t help myself. After she had said, “I hope they put lots of French fries in,” I said, “Look. Someone wrote YOU ARE LOVED all over the sidewalks.”

  Marcy peered over the railing. “Oh yeah.”

  I rubbed my lips together again, enjoying the present moment with the sun on my arms.

  Marcy’s burrito turned out to be mostly French fries—“Be careful what you wish for!”—and my burrito was maybe the worst burrito I had ever had in my entire life. I ate part of it anyway because I was so hungry. Marcy resorted to just eating the fries, dipped in guacamole.

  I pretended to care about the view of the ocean, but really I was looking at the people down on the sidewalk, waiting for someone else to take another picture so I could tell Ana I’d seen at least two people doing that. I turned Marcy’s whir to a low volume—she was talking about her oven now—and leaned my head farther over the railing because I thought a man in a fisherman’s hat might be fishing a camera out of his bag. And then there was a change in the atmosphere. It took me a second to realize that Marcy had stopped talking. And she was looking at me. And I was looking at her. And she still wasn’t saying anything, which was unlike her.

  Casually, I said, “Ovens are frustrating when they don’t work.”

  “Is yours not working?”

  “No. It is.”

  “So is mine. It’s brand-new. It’s given me no trouble at all.”

  “Oh.” I grabbed my water glass. “I must have misunderstood you.”

  Marcy moved her sunglasses up so they became a headband. I may have heard the crackling sound of her Aqua Net hair. She rubbed her small eyes. “I know I talk a lot,” she said, and set her hands on her pink cheeks. “I’m sorry if it’s too much.”

  I was stunned at this reveal of Marcy’s self-awareness. “No, no, it’s—”

  “You don’t have to do that, Nancy. You don’t have to make me feel better. It’s fine. I talk a lot when I’m feeling insecure, that’s all.”

  Again, stunned. “I understand,” I said, paying real attention now because inside Marcy’s Stepford Wife chest a real heart was beating. “I do that sometimes, too.”

  “Really?” she said, not believing me. “You don’t seem like the type who does that.”

  “Okay fine, maybe I don’t. I’m pretty quiet. But I still understand.”

  “Honestly?” she said. “I hate getting to know people. It’s so hard, isn’t it?”

  I laughed. “It can be, yes.”

  “I left a lot of good friends in San Diego.” Her eyes went distant, thinking of them. “I was comfortable in San Diego.”

  I nodded.

  “Here, ugh.” She put her sunglasses back on. “All the street signs look the same, don’t they? Because the Hawaiian alphabet only has twelve letters. I can’t pronounce anything. Thank God for GPS or I would be lost all the time. And I spend so much time alone here. I’m not used to it.”

  I remembered how Marcy had described her journey down the Pig Trail. “And you’re all alone in the forest,” she had said. I may have brought it up so she would know that I did, in fact, pay attention to her sometimes. “Like when you went on the Pig Trail,” I said.

  She shivered at the mention, braced herself like she was really cold. “I still haven’t been back there.”

  “Well,” I said, “it must be an adjustment, too, with your daughter at college now. And Brad working so much. This is a big transition, being here. It’s scary. But you’ll be okay.” When I said that, I realized I was speaking to both of us. This is a big transition, Nancy, but you’ll be okay. Nancy, Nance, Nan, you will be okay.

  “I don’t even know who I am here. I think I’m having a midlife crisis.”

  “I know how you feel,” I told her. “But really, you will be okay.”

  When the waiter brought the check, Marcy pulled up the calculator on her phone to figure out who owed what. Two months ago, this is exactly what I would have done. “Let’s just split it down the middle,” I suggested, and slapped my credit card on the black booklet with ease.

  Marcy spent a few beats considering this new approach. Then she shrugged and said, “Okay, I guess that’s easier.”

  And then, feeling high—I was showing someone a better way to live, even if it was only in this small way—I added, in my least condescending tone, “You know, Marcy, if you can own your solitude, you might start to feel stronger.”

  Marcy frowned. And then I frowned. Because again, I knew I was speaking to both of us. The thought that I was not above Marcy killed my high and sank me fast. I couldn’t even look at her.

  So I looked down instead.

  The black booklet, the white check. The two identical blue Amex cards, and I couldn’t tell which one was mine.

  14

  I don’t feel lonely here, I thought, as I marched deeper into the forest. I don’t feel scared here, I thought, when I heard something living brush through the leaves and quickened my pace. They’re just shoes, I thought, when the path turned to mud. It’s just silence, I thought, when I stopped to tie my muddy shoe and heard no cars and no dogs and no people and no sound in the world beyond the ringing of crickets. When I got to the end, there was a ga
te. I touched the metal—a tangible “you made it.” And then I hurried back down the path—the way back is always faster, the way back is always faster. When I reached the opening—finally, the opening out of the dense leaves—I looked past the white car and thought, Where’s the van? And then I laughed. I had to laugh at myself. A silly mistake, it meant nothing. Nancy! The van is gone. This is your white car. Your white convertible Sharkie. When I got in—ah, it felt so good to sit down and ah, these leather seats—I breathed in deeply and felt proud. I had done it. I had walked the Pig Trail alone. As I drove home, I reminded myself to fully enjoy the recently unwrapped mango scent that permeated my brand-new used car. It was intoxicatingly fresh.

  15

  I abandoned the watercress stir-fry. I didn’t feel like dealing with a recipe. I cooked the easiest, fastest thing, which was a box of five-minute rosemary quinoa and some broccoli steamed in the microwave. I knew Chuck and the boys would want more than that, so I also zapped some Poppers.

  “Boys, please set the table!” I called. They were watching TV with their long legs all over the place. When they didn’t answer, I said it again—“Bo-oys!”—and walked over to them, annoyed that they were forcing me to be so annoying. They heard me coming and put their feet on the floor. “Hello! TV? Don’t you have homework?”

  “We did it already,” Cam said. He was blinking a lot. So was Jed. Bloodshot eyes. Was that the chlorine or—they did look a little dumb. Their limbs were heavy on the couch. Heavier than usual? Were they stoned? I wasn’t in the mood to ask. Terrible that sometimes, as a parent, the easiest thing to do is to ignore the problem. I would make up for this later by searching their rooms.

  “Mom, you’re blocking the TV,” Jed said, straining his neck.

  “Please come set the table.” I pushed the Off button on the imaginary remote in my hand.

  Cam obligingly pushed the real Off button, and Jed said, “Oh man! He was about to do a triple flip!”

  “Well,” I said, “if he can do it once, he can do it again.” God, I sounded like such a mother. Or a grandmother. Suddenly my back hurt again.

  Chuck had called to say he’d be late. Paperwork. I let the boys eat while I took a quick shower. I still had mud all over my legs. Washing it off reminded me of my accomplishment. I had walked the Pig Trail alone.

  I lathered myself with double the usual amount of soap. Paperwork, he had said. And yes, my mind had gone immediately to Shelly. But not the real Shelly—a new version of Shelly here in Hawaii who loved to help the boss with paperwork. Maybe she was even Hawaiian. No, more likely that she’d be blond again. Chuck had a thing for blondes—he was always pointing out the “perfectly symmetrical bone structure” of Sharon Stone or Charlize Theron or some other blond actress. Five years ago, when we’d begun to drift, I got blond highlights, which made me look like a teenybopper, and which didn’t fix things. I scrubbed my legs harder with the loofah and reminded myself to get a grip. Be present, Nance. And get a grip. Things are going well with Chuck. He’s not going to cheat on you again. At least tonight, he’s not. It’s too soon.

  By the time Chuck got home—“Honey, I’m home!” he Ricky Ricardo’d—the boys had finished everything but the broccoli (I’d overcooked it), and I was eating the overcooked broccoli anyway at the computer, reading my blog. (“Maple-Adobo Tostadas = 2 Die 4 x 15!”)

  I got up to kiss him, and really to hunt for traces of perfume on his person. I detected none. “How was paperwork?”

  “Good,” he said in a believable tone, and then he went on to explain the glitch with the payroll system at Costco and how he planned to remedy it, which sounded real. And anyway, I could tell when Chuck was lying, and he wasn’t lying now.

  The boys were back at the TV, rapt by a snowboarder cutting through a half tube of ice.

  Chuck plucked a limp piece of broccoli from Cam’s plate. He looked at my plate by the computer. “Looks like everyone’s doing their own thing tonight.”

  “No, no.” I stood up. “We’ll sit at the table with you.” When the boys didn’t move, I said, “Now,” and they got up and shuffled to the table with hanging heads, and crawled into the chairs on either side of their father. I microwaved Chuck’s plate for a minute and brought it to him, and sat down with what was left of my meal.

  Jed took out his phone, and Chuck said, “Please, no phones at dinner.” Then he winked at me—go, Team Parents!—and took a bite of Popper. He had trouble chewing. The Popper was tough from the microwave. But he didn’t complain. He did the work and chewed and asked the boys about practice, and right as Cam began a story about the goalie—“He’s really good, but he got suspended, so we don’t—” my phone rang.

  I got up. Jed, mocking his father’s order, said in an ogre voice, “No phones at dinner.”

  “I’m just going to see who it is.” On the screen: ANA. “I’ll just be a sec,” I said, and made my way out to the lanai.

  I barely had time to finish my “Hello?” before Ana said, “Nan. You are not going to believe this.”

  “What.”

  “Eunice didn’t post the ad. She postponed it!”

  “Really?” I was so happy for her. A wave of relief washed through my body, as if I were the one who’d been granted more time in the house. “That’s wonderful.”

  “It means our plan is working.” I could hear her clapping. “What are you doing right now? Want to come over?”

  “Oh, I wish I could, but I can’t.”

  She chuckled. “The chains of domestic life.”

  I complied with a little “ha,” though I didn’t find it very funny. “I’ll call you soon,” I said.

  “Bye, soul sister.”

  “Bye.”

  “Bye. I always like to be the last one to say good-bye. So bye.” She hung up.

  When I walked back into the house, my family was silent and staring at me. “What’s going on?” I asked in a way that suggested my answering one phone call during dinner was not a big deal.

  “We paused the conversation and waited for you,” Chuck said sincerely.

  “Oh, thanks, hon,” I said. I only ever called him “hon” when he irritated me.

  “Anyway,” Cam said quickly, “the goalie got suspended, so he probably won’t be able to play in the next two games.”

  “Shame,” Chuck said, drinking more water to get the Poppers down.

  Then we went around the table and said what we had done that day. This was a Murphy family tradition. Everyone but Chuck kept it brief. Cam: “I went to school.” Jed: “I went to school and practice and watched a bomb snowboarder rip it up until the TV got turned off.” (Chuck and I exchanged a look of parental frustration.) I said, “I went to a lei-making class with Marcy, and then I walked on a trail.” Chuck thought that was “marvelous” and then explained the parts of his day like it was a slideshow: this is where I parked, this is where I ate my lunch, this is how we plan to stock product more efficiently, and this is why that’s important. He maintained his upbeat attitude the whole time, speaking with such energy about the ins and outs of his job, happily unaware that he had lost his audience back at “I found a great new parking spot around the side, much closer to the employee entrance.” Jed and Cam kept yawning—were they stoned or just tired?—while I diligently encouraged Chuck with, “Wow,” and “That’s great,” and his just used “Marvelous.”

  The boys didn’t want dessert—did this mean they were not stoned?—and so yes, they could be excused after they cleared the dishes. While Chuck showered, I cleaned up everything else and thought about how the night before—Thai takeout, yoga poses on Ana’s floor, touching a snake for the first time, writing on sidewalks—had been so very different from tonight’s domestic chains. But, this—me hovered over the sink, my hands plastered inside my yellow dishwashing gloves—was only part of me now. I had another life. A secret life. A life just for Nancy. And knowing this made scrubbing the Popper barnacles off the plate much more bearable.

  •

&
nbsp; We made love with Chuck on top because my back hurt. Chuck thrust energetically. I closed my eyes and concentrated on matching his energy. I could do that. I could meet him halfway. And I did, and it got better. When we were done, we whispered “I love you”s. Then Chuck had to use the bathroom. So I got up and brushed my teeth. I straightened the sheets. I grabbed from the floor the one pillow that had fallen. We put on our pajamas. At 3:00 a.m. I woke up in a puddle of Chuck’s drool and moved to the far side of the bed.

  16

  By the eleventh week in Hawaii, I had lost thirteen pounds. I’d taken to wearing my active gear all the time—I just knew that had something to do with it. Ana had given me some of her old yoga clothes—really nice stuff—and Chuck had bought me a three-pack of Costco camisoles. (“Look”—he pointed to the words written across the model’s stomach—“Ideal for stretching.”) It was a very nice gesture, although size small was still too small for me, and probably always would be.

  I had switched my hair products to Aveda—Ana’s suggestion; that was the brand she used to use when she had hair—and now my brittle hair was supple, just as she had promised. I hadn’t become a vegetarian, but I was eating a lot less meat. Mostly I ate vegetables. Not from the garden, because the garden was still just a rectangle of soil (my lone sprig had gone missing), but from the farmers’ market in town. The very nice vendors didn’t know my name quite yet, but the way they said “You!” or “Lady!” or “Mango green bean lady!” meant that they knew who I was.

  Chuck and I agreed the boys were still adjusting normally, although they had ditched school one day to go surfing, and I was now positive they were smoking pot because I’d found a baggie in Cam’s underwear drawer. But we agreed that ditching a little school—only three periods—and smoking a little pot—the baggie had been tiny—were normal things for teenage boys to do. It could have been a lot worse.

  After their ditch day, we had a sit-down family meeting. Gently, so as not to push them away, we reminded them that school was important and marijuana was illegal. Yes, we did understand the pressures of high school, but these were just the facts. I lost some Cool Parent points when I blurted out, “I bet Liko smokes pot.” Cam glanced at Jed—he’s your friend—and Jed rolled his eyes at me. Then Chuck, in an effort to win back the points I had lost us, added in his buddy-buddy way, “The thing is, boys, pot lowers your sperm count,” to which Jed confidently said, “Well, so does Mountain Dew,” and Cam echoed, “It’s true,” and then Chuck, despite himself, asked, “Really?”